The Food Diary in the Wild: Sam's surprising sugar realisation

We can bang on about how great our Food Diary is for better understanding your health and body, but don't just listen to us - listen to the people all across the world who use and love it. This week we caught up with Sam from London, UK to find out how her diary helped her...

I bought the diary because I hadn't put on any weight in a couple of years despite eating plenty and also had quite low energy. I stopped eating gluten and wanted to see if this had had a positive effect on my general health and, at the same time, keep general track of what might be causing my health issues.

Keeping the diary has really made me realise that I was eating way too much sugar! It's only when you write things down that it registers with you what you've had, and for me I recognised that it wasn't benefiting my body in any way so I've tried to cut back as much as possible.

My favourite thing about the diary is that it's a really simple (and beautiful) way of keeping track of your symptoms and understanding your body better. Everything links together and what you put into your body has such a huge effect on how your body works it's extremely beneficial to understand what's right for you. Because I always write at the end of the day I use the notes section to write three things I'm grateful for at the end of the day. It's a nice little way to end the day, regardless of everything else that's happened and how you might have felt.

There are so many different things people tell you about what is good for you and what works and what doesn't, but every person is different. So it may be that a vegan/paleo/keto diet isn't the right thing for you but elements of it are, and using the diary helps you very clearly see every day what's working and what isn't for you personally. I'd say it sets you off on a better path to a healthy life!

If you're ready to start tracking and take control of your health, you can get your own diary here.